optical channel (OCh)

In the Optical Transport Hierarchy ( OTH), the optical containers are referred to as Optical Channels (OCh) and thus correspond functionally to the Virtual Containers ( VC) of the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy ( SDH). High bit rate signals are transported via the Optical Channels. These signals can be SDH signals, but also data packets from Gigabit Ethernet ( GbE) or Fibre Channel ( FC).